Recently, the Guardian published an article titled "Why I hate being a black man" by a Canadian writer. No similarly prominent Canadian media outlets have provided a much-needed black male Canadian's reaction to the piece. The deafening silence is curious, telling and typically Canadian.

So I'm standing outside "The Barn" restaurant ("It's called The Barn because all the animals go there" I was once told), having a smoke, and some hapless soul walks up and asks me for a cigarette. That'll teach me to open up a full pack on Queen Street. As I hand this guy his smoke, he looks at me, and in all sincerity asks "Do you know Tony?".

At first glance, the Canadian Pacific Railway contract fiasco of the early 1870s is the granddaddy of all Canadian scandals. But only the tip of the iceberg has been recounted ad nauseam by historians. The real story is far more gripping, and is actually one of the more fascinating events in Canadian business and political history.